To begin, we must agree on the definition of a community of practice. What is it, why is it important, and how does it function?

Traditionally construed, the community of practice is a group of people who work together to achieve something. For the purposes of beginning this paper, I will use one of Wenger’s most recent definitions of a community of practice, "…a group working together towards a common goal, communicating with each other about that goal, and sharing the experience." (Wenger and Snyder, 2000: 142) It is unsaid in the quote, but the group to which they refer is made of people (Homo sapiens sapiens). Communities form in companies, for example (but potentially can form in any type of organization), to help them do their work, and in doing so are able to:

A community of practice differs from traditional, formal, organized business structures such as departments, offices (people defined by physical location), job titles, and business units. The community of practice is not available on an organizational chart, and its communication does not run through "official channels." Communities of practice cut across the formal boundaries of the organization and function at the task level, and, at the core, are "designed" for this purpose, even if that design is self-organizing.

Communities of practice have become important as units of study in recent years, especially among academics of business, because businesses themselves have been obsessed with technology and process, but not people. Both technology and process have been promoted as the answer to all ills, from the business process re-engineering trend (and subsequent hype) of the 1980’s to the Internet and digital revolution during the 1990’s. Roots of this type of thinking can be found in the Taylorist "scientific management" during the twentieth century (Taylor, 1947). However, since none of these theories have lived up to their hype as cure-alls (perhaps because the hype obscures the limits of success), businesses actually started to look at the only resource they had left – people. Academics observed the state of affairs, and realized that the way people operate and actually do their jobs is different from how businesses thought they did their jobs—a gold mine for both study and for potential products. Perhaps the most important theory posited in this area was the clear distinction that was made between "learning" and "training." The former is something that people do to make sense of their world, and the latter something organizations do to create repeatable systems. (Wenger, 1998: 3) Most importantly, it was noticed and studied that companies with strong communities of practice had more productive and happier employees. One result of these studies that has been applied can be seen in the newfound, team-based, flexible structures and groups, as opposed to the traditionally rigid, hierarchical corporate structures, as organizations try to provide room for CoPs to form and grow.